Many high volume food service establishments such as restaurants, hotels, hospitals and similar institutional settings meet some food supply requirements with prepared foods such as salads. A problem with prepared salads is that it is difficult for the food establishments to control the consistency and the quantity of the finished products. Furthermore, prepared salads have a rather limited shelf life which necessitates a frequent delivery schedule and increased costs.
As an alternative commissaries and other commercial salad processors have utilized in-house operations for salad preparation. These facilities however, require the maintenance of inventories of salad food solids, spices, preservatives and other food additives. Other shortcomings of on-site preparation are that the procuring of the raw materials, assembling of the ingredients and mixing of the condiments require skilled personnel, is time consuming and is costly.
Another salad processing technique relies upon prepared dry spice blends which eliminate some of the assembly and mixing requirements of on-site preparation. The dry spice blends however, must be hydrated before incorporation into the salad food solids. An inherent deficiency with dry spice blends is that the spices are frequently subject to microbiological contamination. Another difficulty arises when attempting to effectively incorporate the hydrated spices into the salad food mix in order to achieve uniform flavor strength.
The development of "wet" seasoning blends obviates the necessity for hydrating the spices however, the effectiveness of these liquid blends depend primarily on spice oleoresins in suspension. If the spices are not evenly distributed in the suspension, the finished food product lacks consistency in flavor and quality.
An example of a liquid seasoning composition is disclosed in the patent to TODD (U.S. Pat. No. 4,343,823). The seasoning ingredients described in that patent include spice oleoresins that are dispersable in an oil or water suspension. A disadvantage of that composition is that the spice oils are not fully released and thoroughly distributed through the salad food solids. Similarly, a semisolid dressing of the TAKADA patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,304,795) also relies upon a suspension carrier. A dry mix is discussed in the GOODMAN patent (U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,261) which when reconstituted provides an emulsion however, the emulsion is not utilized for transporting flavor ingredients.